Check out these Eternal War mission rules from the main 9th Edition 40k rulebook that you can play right now, for with 2000 point armies.
Imgur, has posted is what looks to be a nice list of Eternal War missions found inside the Core Rulebook. With that said we’ll be pulling out a few and going over the details. If you want to see them all for yourself, head over there and look at the entire listing once we’re done here.
9th Edition 40k Eternal War Mission Rules You’ll Need
Before we jump in, it’s important to note that all of the battlefields are measured from the middle. That’s to make it easier to scale your board up or down depending on how many points you play. With that said, the ones that are up on Imgur all look to be Strike Force (2,000 pt equivalent).
Key Notes on Setting Up Games
There are a bunch of details on the pre-game setup for Eternal War Missions it looks like. Depending on the size of game you play, there are select missions to choose from on a chart with a roll of d6.
Important Note: If you noticed, the priority of steps in setting up the battlefield has changed. You place objectives before setting up terrain. This is huge.
We’ve all had games where the table looks great. But once objective start dropping, you’ve probably had to slide a terrain piece a few inches in a direction (or just have an awkwardly placed objective to hold). This could potentially create an uneven scoring field for players and to eliminate that, GW made it so objectives go down first. Terrain also can’t be placed directly over objectives.
For the final note to make about setup, players roll off to decide who is the Attacker and Defender with the Defender picking the deployment zone. In addition, players secretly note down which of their units will start in Strategic Reserves. Deploying things in reserves/ in Transports isn’t something you do on the fly now. You have to have it set in stone before anything else begins. Now let’s look into some missions.
No Man’s Land- Turns off Deepstriking
Let’s check two of the new missions at 2000 points, starting with No Man’s Land. If you look at the mission-specific No Man’s Land rule, any unit that has a deepstriking rule has to be set up on the battlefield. On top of that, there won’t be any turn one shenanigans like a massive Death Company squad popping Forlorn Fury to move and advance before the first turn. To create a literal “no man’s land” both players have their forces locked inside their deployment zone to start.
Instead of scoring up two four points in an objective slot like the ITC, GW scaled things up giving you 3pts per secured objective to a max of 15 per turn.
Important Note: It’s going to be extremely important to read WHEN players score their points. Some say “end of Command Phase” and others say “end of turn”. Be sure to read between the lines on each of these missions for end of game, and progressive scoring at different times.
Front-Line Warfare- Prevents Players From Scoring the First Turn
Front-Line Warfare uses the old Dawn of War deployment with four objectives 16″ away from the center of the battlefield for a Strike Force game. Remember, these objectives can be moved closer together if you’re playing a scaled-down 500 pt game.
This mission still has a Primary and a Secondary Objective as well. However, note that both of the objectives are restricted. They cannot be scored in the first battle round. Unlike the mission from above, however, both of these are scored in the Command Phase.
That’s more than likely been put in place so that the player who gets to go first doesn’t make a crater around the objective in the defender’s deployment zone and throw bodies on it before the other player even gets a chance to move. Historically, 8th Edition started out as an alpha Strike meta and by the end of turn two, players would have a pretty good idea of who would win. This seems like a way to progress the game a bit more.
The main takeaways are going to be that it’ll be heavily important to read the full mission (probably twice) before you actually start rolling dice. Just of the two we’ve looked at, they’ve varied pretty heavily on how you deploy things as well as when you score. Just be careful on your first 9th Edition game day if you pick an Eternal War for your Strikeforce level army.
What do you think about the new missions to play through from the core rulebook? Are you going to be testing one of these missions out soon?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
